Good news! The 1990 U.S. Census has reported that Irish Americans now number 44.3 million, a 3.6 million increase over the 1980 census figure of 40.7 million. The new figure is equivalent to 17.9 percent of the total U.S. population.
Coincidentally, 3.6 million closely correlates to the population of the Irish Republic. There are just five million people on the whole island and the Irish diaspora, as measured by her immigrant sons and daughters and their cousins abroad, is an extraordinary phenomenon. With an estimated 70 million Irish worldwide the Irish nation abroad outnumbers the mother country by over 14 to 1.
There are 58 million German Americans in the U.S., for instance, according to the 1990 Census, but that figure is short of the number living in the reunited Germany.
Likewise, those of English ancestry now number 32.7 million, less than the population of England itself. Coincidentally, the English ancestry number plummeted from 49 million in the 1980 census due to a huge overcount back then, according to the Census Bureau.
The 44.3 million Irish figure was made up of 39 million Irish only and 5.3 million who defined themselves as Scotch-Irish.
The latter definition has been added since the 1980 Census after consulting with demographic experts.
What are we to make of the new figures?
Doubtless they continue the trend among Americans of Irish background to proudly identify themselves as such.
While that would seem an obvious step, it was not always so, and indeed it is only in the past Kennedy era that such an identity has become fashionable.
Nowadays, you cannot pick up a major magazine without tripping over an Irish theme. ‘Vanity Fair’ and ‘Time’ magazine recently featured profiles of Irish President Mary Robinson, for instance.
She, indeed, is the spiritual head of this Irish nation abroad. She is the first politician in Ireland to speak of her responsibilities, not just to those on the island but to all the Irish people. The lamp she has left burning in a window of her presidential residence is a welcoming beacon, she says, for all those outside the country.
Mary Robinson, U2, ‘My Left Foot,’ ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’ are all elements in the vanguard of a new pan-Celticism that has universalized the Irish experience, and has become as powerful a force for defining a new kind of Irishness as the Celtic revival led by W.B. Yeats in the early part of this century.
The new Ireland has found a ready sounding board here in the U.S. As Irish Americans have become more conscious of their identity, in business, the arts and elsewhere, they have eagerly absorbed and, in many cases, helped launch this brave new Irishness.
The nurturing role by Irish Americans is as it should be. The ancient voices still call across the generations. The 44.3 million are, after all, leaves on the branch of a tree that had its roots aeons ago in Irish soil.
The 1990 Census signals the continuing flowering of those roots. As I write this, the ‘Irish Times’ is reporting that emigration will rise steeply in Ireland again throughout the 1990s. Thanks to the Morrison visa program, many thousands will find their way to these shores once again.
Someday, their children’s children will write “Irish” as ethnic origin on their census form, and Irish America will begin reinventing itself again.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the July August 1992 issue of Irish America. ♦
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